MUMS Family Newsletter

Dear MUMS Community,

We hope that you all had a wonderful summer and were able to spend it doing things that you enjoy. For those of you who were affected by the flooding that took place through out July we are hopeful that you are on the way to repairing damage and getting back to a bit of normalcy. Please reach out if there are ways the school can support your child during this process.

We welcomed sixth graders here on orientation day and were so impressed by their transition skills and open-mindedness.

On Wednesday we welcomed our seventh and eighth graders back and MUMS felt whole again! Ask your child to tell you about our assemblies, their T.A. and team activities, and what they are most looking forward to next week.

We hope that you enjoy your long weekend and look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday!

If you have questions, please reach out to us at mwisell@acsdvt.org (Michaela)

or zjerome@acsdvt.org (Zach) or by calling the MUMS office at 802-382-1600 or by visiting the MUMS website for more information.

We are so excited to be here and look forward to a great year ahead.

- Michaela & Zach

Michaela Wisell, Principal

Zach Jerome, Assistant Principal

• Your child's individual schedule can be accessed at the counseling office whenever they need a copy.
• You can view our school-wide schedule HERE.
• You can view our 6th-8th grade teaching teams here
• School Begins: 8:15am; School Ends: 3:15pm
• Students will have an A-Day & B-Day schedule, they will alternate each day
• Each day will include 80 minute class blocks, lunch period, teacher advisory (TA), and exploratory

FROM THE SCHOOL NURSE

Annual Health Forms

Please complete the annual health form that will be sent digitally in a few days. It is important for us to have any updates to your student’s medical history, medications, permission for over the counter medications, and permission for emergency care. Reach out to the school front office if you lose yours.

Student Medical Concerns and Emergency Medical Plans

If your student has a medical condition that may require treatment, monitoring, or other needs at school, please reach out by email or phone to make us aware of the issue. If you have an emergency plan from a healthcare provider for concerns such as asthma, allergies, seizures, or diabetes please share these with us as well.

Student Illness and COVID

We expect students and staff to stay home with any potentially contagious illnesses or symptoms including the following:

1. Vomiting/diarrhea-must be 24 hours symptom free before returning to school

2. Fever 100.4 or greater (Please note this used to be 100 or greater, but this has changed with the input of our district medical consultants at Porter Pediatrics)-home until fever free without use of medication for 24 hours

3. Any infection requiring antibiotic-keep your student home until they have been on antibiotics for 24 hours

4. Persistent cough that disrupts normal activity

5. Unexplained rash

6. Influenza-stay home until fever free without medication for 24 hours

7. Any other symptoms or illness that impedes a student’s ability to learn or staff’s ability to work.

You may return once feeling well enough to be at school and fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medications.

Click here to view our COVID and Contagious illness guidance infographic. We are currently waiting to hear if we will continue to have access to COVID tests to send home with families and staff as needed. At this time, the school nurse will no longer be able to test students or staff for COVID at school though this is subject to change.

Vaccine Information

If your student has received any of the school-required vaccines since last year, please send us this info. We do not need dates of flu or COVID vaccines. If your student has a religious exemption, please complete and send us an exemption form yearly.

By clicking on this link, you can access the most updated information and resources on vaccinations through the Vermont Department of Health. This includes annual vaccination rate data, school vaccination requirements, information on exemptions and exemption forms.

Prescription and Over-the-counter Medications

We do not allow students to carry prescribed or over the counter medications on them at school. Exceptions to this include students who carry an inhaler, EpiPen, Benadryl, diabetic supplies or other approved emergency medications.

Daily medications that need to be taken during school hours can be kept in the nursing office. These require orders from the prescribing healthcare provider, caregiver permission for administration at school and should be sent to school in the original pharmacy bottle. We ask that any medications be dropped off by an adult and not sent to school with a student. We have a variety of over-the-counter medications in the health office for students to access for daily concerns such as headache, cramps, upset stomach, seasonal allergies, sore throat, etc. We do need signed permission on the annual health form to administer these.

Vision and Hearing Screening

Per Vermont state requirements, the school nurse will complete vision and hearing screening on MUMS 7th graders. We are also happy to screen your student if you have concerns at any time. If these screenings are abnormal you will receive a letter with the screening results to review and share with your student’s healthcare provider.

Wishing everyone a great new school year. Please reach out anytime!

Elizabeth Palko, BSN RN

MUMS School Nurse

epalko@acsdvt.org

(802) 382-1270

ACSD Health Services webpage

Greetings, MUMS families! We are very excited for the new year, and look forward to giving you weekly “peeks” into our many classrooms at MUMS. Starting next week, we will focus on a specific classroom or department’s work within the MYP (Middle Years Program) to help you learn more. We look forward to meeting many of you at our MUMS Back-to-School Night on the 20th!

Eileen Sears, MYP Coordinator & ACSD Curriculum Leader

esears@acsdvt.org

802-382-1753

Pam Quinn, MYP Coordinator

pquinn@acsdvt.org

802-382-1243

Advanced Math: We continue to have this position posted on schoolspring and work with the our ACSD teams to find a solution. In the interim, we have a substitute covering Advanced math for the next few weeks. Please direct any inquiries or questions to me and if you know of any interested candidates please have them reach out.

Literacy Interventionist Update: We continue to look for a qualified candidate to fill this very important position. If you know of anyone who may be interested, please let us know, or send them our way.

Please join me in thanking Esther Charlestin for her hard work at MUMS over the past year, we are grateful for her insight and we wish her well in her new adventure. Her last day is today September 1st, 2023.

Welcome to our new Dean of Culture and Climate

We are very pleased to announce that we have hired Dustin Hunt as our new Dean of Culture and Climate. We are grateful to have the wealth of knowledge and experience that he brings and look forward to his transition. Dustin will start with us on October 2nd and in the meantime, Michael Dudek will serve as interim Dean. Thank you Michael, for taking this on for us in the coming weeks and please join me in welcoming Dustin to our MUMS learning community! If you have questions or concerns in the coming weeks relative to clubs or athletics please reach out to Michael at mdudek@acsdvt.org.

Dustin's Bio:

My name is Dustin Hunt and I am extremely excited to be joining the leadership team at MUMS this fall. I am a lifelong Middlebury resident having graduated from MUHS in 2004 and always knew I wanted to return after college to raise a family in this great community. Together with my fiancé Amber we have 5 children that will all be attending Middlebury schools this fall. In my free time I enjoy coaching baseball and basketball, watching my children’s athletic events, attending races, camping, and going on mini-adventures with my family.

I graduated from Husson University in Bangor, Maine in 2008 with a degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Sports Management. I began my professional career with the Town of Middlebury Parks and Recreation in 2009 and have held the positions of grounds and maintenance, Program Coordinator and was hired as Superintendent in 2018 where I remained until accepting this position.

Working in Parks and Recreation for the past 14 years has given me the opportunity to forge meaningful relationships with many of the students and families in our district and I am enthusiastic to use my new role to build upon those relationships and foster new ones within our school to help contribute to a climate where everyone feels welcome and proud of the school they attend. I am also looking forward to the challenge of improving upon existing extra-curricular activities and working with our coaches and volunteers to deliver a consistent experience for all our student-athletes as well as creating new clubs, events and activities that are fun and engaging and meet the interests and needs of our diverse student population.

I hope everyone has a great start to the school year, I cannot wait to get started and meet as many new faces as possible in the coming months!

If they haven't already, students can sign up for clubs and athletics in T.A. in the coming days. You will also need to fill out the Rank One forms on the website to enroll your students and provide emergency contact information. Rank One forms and athletics/club schedules can be found on the website linked below.

MUMS Website/Athletics-Clubs

Our apologies for the challenges/delays with the buses on the first day of school. We recognize how anxiety inducing this can be and also want to reassure you that there are always glitches in routes at the beginning of the year.

• Bus routes are all listed on the website
• Shoreham busses do not pick students up at MUMS at the end of the day. Shoreham students should ride the Weybridge bus to MUHS where they will board their Shoreham bus.
• Cornwall busses do not pick students up at MUMS at the end of the day. Cornwall students should ride the Bridport bus to MUHS where they will board their Cornwall bus.

We are so excited to welcome parents and community members back into our buildings this year! If you are interested in substitute teaching or volunteering this year, please start an application now!

If you are interested in joining our new Friends of MUMS group, email friendsofmums@gmail.com